If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Re: Future of MTG

Originally Posted by FourDogsinaHorseSuit

Every old school deck I've seen is just a collection of some of the most expensive cards available, and the decks themselves are just vehicles to put them together. If you want me to see your alpha Serra Angel, and some moxen you happen to own just show them to me. I don't need to shuffle up a deck no reasonable person can afford to see it.

It's the geek version of slowly driving a highend supercar along a boulevard. Quite literally a vehicle to show off the money you think you can waste on toys.

Re: Future of MTG

LOVE the salt in the past couple pages. Love when people assume, if they cant afford something, that anyone who does is either spending beyond their means or doing it to show off. It's honestly part of what makes Old School so sweet. It's not rubbing it in someones face, it's knowing that people with issues are going to get really triggered, project and get jealous, while normal folks can sit down and enjoy old cards with me. Win win.

Anyone who says old school is about showing off has never been to an event either. Its the most beer and pretzel form of magic there is. Most tournaments end with half the people too drunk to play.

Re: Future of MTG

Originally Posted by FourDogsinaHorseSuit

Every old school deck I've seen is just a collection of some of the most expensive cards available, and the decks themselves are just vehicles to put them together. If you want me to see your alpha Serra Angel, and some moxen you happen to own just show them to me. I don't need to shuffle up a deck no reasonable person can afford to see it.

Honestly man, I suggested it because it's such a great format and it's the only non-Standard constructed one without any fetch lands as he asked.

Re: Future of MTG

Originally Posted by NecroPoppins

LOVE the salt in the past couple pages. Love when people assume, if they cant afford something, that anyone who does is either spending beyond their means or doing it to show off. It's honestly part of what makes Old School so sweet. It's not rubbing it in someones face, it's knowing that people with issues are going to get really triggered, project and get jealous, while normal folks can sit down and enjoy old cards with me. Win win.

Anyone who says old school is about showing off has never been to an event either. Its the most beer and pretzel form of magic there is. Most tournaments end with half the people too drunk to play.

I hate it when I go to a beer drinking contest and a magic tournament breaks out

Originally Posted by iatee

I still have a strong suspicion that if 'Thalia, Heretic Cathar' had been named 'Frank, Heretic Cathar', people would be a lot more skeptical of it.

Originally Posted by Goin Aggro

Ugh, there he goes again, talking about the girlfriend. We get it dude.

Re: Future of MTG

LOVE the salt in the past couple pages. Love when people assume, if they cant afford something, that anyone who does is either spending beyond their means or doing it to show off.

And there you are assuming that it's a matter of lacking money and not one of refusing to spend it on a solved format. Given the fuzz people were making about blackborder and original printings only for '93/'94, it's hard to deny that showing off is a significant part of the appeal.

Re: Future of MTG

Originally Posted by Lemnear

And there you are assuming that it's a matter of lacking money and not one of refusing to spend it on a solved format. Given the fuzz people were making about blackborder and original printings only for '93/'94, it's hard to deny that showing off is a significant part of the appeal.

Every MtG variant has people who like to pimp out their decks though. I understand your point but at its core, OS is just a casual way to play that encompasses nostalgia and good times. Anyway, I didn't think my post would make people argue (I know I know, this is the internet), I was merely suggesting the person might consider it.

Re: Future of MTG

I hate it when I go to a beer drinking contest and a magic tournament breaks out

Oh man, you would love these Magic tournaments that these guys put on in Houston. Shit, they give free beer to first place (of the magic tournament)

Originally Posted by Dice_Box

You don't get to play the most powerful cards in the format and then bitch when someone finally says no. You also don't get to bitch that it's not fun when someone finally tells you no instead of voyeuristicly watching you masturbate with Cantrips.

Re: Future of MTG

Originally Posted by NecroPoppins

LOVE the salt in the past couple pages. Love when people assume, if they cant afford something, that anyone who does is either spending beyond their means or doing it to show off. It's honestly part of what makes Old School so sweet. It's not rubbing it in someones face, it's knowing that people with issues are going to get really triggered, project and get jealous, while normal folks can sit down and enjoy old cards with me. Win win.

Anyone who says old school is about showing off has never been to an event either. Its the most beer and pretzel form of magic there is. Most tournaments end with half the people too drunk to play.

Thank God you're incapable of introspection, otherwise you might have not written this gem.

Re: Future of MTG

It is better to ask and look stupid then keep your mouth shut and remain so.

Originally Posted by Spam

Do not make fun of lands masters, they've spent many years mastering the punishing fire technique in the secret loam monastery. Do not mistake them with the miracles masters, eternal rivals, they won't like it.

Originally Posted by DarthVicious

I hope your afterlife is filled with eternal torment.

Originally Posted by Dice_Box

Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?

Originally Posted by DarthVicious

Something about how fun it is pulling the wings off flies and microwaving the neighbors cat?

Re: Future of MTG

I have a couple of mundane reflections or musings on this discussion, bear with me.

1. The topic of the thread is the future of magic, just a gentle reminder. There is no real meaning in discussing card games anyway, one could argue, so I guess any discussion is fine really, anywhere. Discuss what you want, wherever you want, but consider if it's useful to use different threads as a practical tool for separating discussions. I'm mostly referring to the B&R discussion. However, I guess I don't follow my own recommendations with this post.

2. Most Legacy players don't get to criticize Old School players for playing a ridiculously expensive format. Many Legacy players enjoy pimping their deck, spending a lot of resources doing it for the pure enjoyment of having nice cards. A nice part about MtG is actually that you get the pleasure of owning things, I don't get the same joy out of other purchases that I get from buying nice pieces of this collectible card game. I'll even argue that it's fantastic how this game makes people totally uninterested in art very interested in the art presented on the cards. This cultivating aspect is really attractive to me, and this is perhaps made apparent from another perspective in these forums: by bringing people to have discussions and interact who otherwise might have chosen less involving pastimes. So, I wouldn't criticize other sub groups of players for enjoying collectability of trading cards, it is a nice aspect of the game.

3. I must confess to learning a couple of new words in this thread, I really enjoy that. Hmm, this is actually an extension of (2).

4. The discussion on projections and counter-projections was a bit hard to follow, I'm not sure who is projecting what on whom now, and I still don't know what post-modernist philosophy is, but I'm getting very curious about it. It surfaced on a recent lunch with some colleagues, it appears to be a popular topic of conversation. I guess this is also just an extension of (2).

Re: Future of MTG

Originally Posted by pettdan

4. The discussion on projections and counter-projections was a bit hard to follow, I'm not sure who is projecting what on whom now, and I still don't know what post-modernist philosophy is, but I'm getting very curious about it. It surfaced on a recent lunch with some colleagues, it appears to be a popular topic of conversation. I guess this is also just an extension of (2).

You all continue now.

Well, in my not-defense, I was wrong in my nomenclature. But hey, we can only know what we know at the time. In reality, there is more to it. It's really more of a neo-Marxist sort of sentiment, although that doesn't really fit either. I'd recommend you just look into stuff yourself, because any thing I tell you is almost certainly wrong, mainly because I don't actually know and am only trying to learn myself. I know I'm stupid, but I am trying to become less so.

The long and the short of my point though, is that everyone has some sort of fabled level of "diversity" they imagine should exist in Legacy. What that is, in any quantifiable manner is unknown, even subjectively. So, there is a huge, undefined, grey area between an absurdly open format, where even Grizzly Bears is playable and the absurdly constricted format where there is literally only one deck that is competitive. What is in between is extremes an unclear morass of subjective interpretive schema masquerading as objective facts.

Not that there aren't objective facts. But there is no clear, intelligible way to arrive from those facts to the "absolute" value of "appropriate diversity." Because that's exactly what diversity is, it's a value, not a fact. (Note, that is value, as a noun, as in "the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something." not value as a numerical indicator, or the like.)

So, what we really have here is essentially what Hume describes as the "Is-Ought distinction." Nested inside that, is what Kant talks about in his Critique of Pure Reason.

So, we can easy describe what is. For example, what is the current state of the Legacy metagame, vis-ŗ-vis representation of certain cards. What we argue over, ceaselessly is the ought, what ought to be the state of the metagame? Nothing, really, of the is defines what ought necessarily should be. What determines that, of course, is our value structure. Do we prioritize color diversity? Strategic diversity? Card diversity? What? There is no necessary way in which we must structure our "ontological Legacy format," so to speak. That is to say, what, if any, hierarchy should we have in Legacy?

We spice this, essentially, with the problem of what Kant, rather indecipherable to dumb-dumbs like me, realizes in The Critique of Pure Reason, is that we can never actually eliminate our subjective perspective even in attempting to apply "pure reason." Because, essentially, our brains implicitly function by taking in facts and subjecting them to values. This is now found as an absolute fact of psychology. For example, inattentional blindness. Your eyes might "see" something, in the fact of light hitting them, but your brain, assigning value, simply does not attend and so you don't notice it. This is part of the root of confirmation bias. We have tons of fact available, but what we focus on, what we give value, are the things that then map to our inherent values.

What does all this mean? Well, it means that facts aren't what will inform us what an "ideal Legacy format" looks like. It won't even inform us of what Legacy is. What the Legacy format should look like, ought to look like, is a matter of values, not a matter of fact.

So, if you want to know why we bicker so much about all this, is the same reason why people bicker about politics and anything else that are really matters of values and not matters of facts. Although, people try to masquerade such things as matters of facts. We do this because we generally imagine ourselves rational, empiricists. But are aren't, at least, not to the degree we'd like to think.

So, what's the "Future of MTG?" Well, the future of Legacy is people (hopefully) realizing what the foundational nature of Legacy should be. Or at least, asking the right question.

"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
óKaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order

Re: Future of MTG

Reading this after a couple of beers wasn't easy, and I somewhat ironically think I owe you a beer for this long answer, thanks! This is btw a good topic for a discussion over a beer, I'll bring it to our next weekly after legacy beer.. I got the point at the end, and actually argued similarly last spring I think, I agree, but I didn't know it was a post-modernist view. Now I have an introduction for looking into it, awesome!

Re: Future of MTG

Originally Posted by Bithlord

I *really* don't understand how fetchlands are essential to Legacy as a format. I get (although I disagree with) the concept that brainstorm is essential because it defines the feel of legacy. But fetchlands? Nah. They aren't even remotely essential to the format.

Without fetch lands decks will end up costing 2-3x as much as they do now due to increase need for duals. Pretty essential from a practical perspective.

Re: Future of MTG

Originally Posted by Lemnear

And there you are assuming that it's a matter of lacking money and not one of refusing to spend it on a solved format. Given the fuzz people were making about blackborder and original printings only for '93/'94, it's hard to deny that showing off is a significant part of the appeal.

It's only solved if you have the money to buy the optimal deck. That's the whole point of the format! It used to be very difficult to acquire cards because ABU/ANAQLG weren't widely available! You would have to play with what you have! That's why old school is a format of those who love the old feel of Magic, not of spikes and netdeckers. Basically, everyone is playing suboptimal decks. Old school players aren't all super wealthy lawyers and technocrats.

Re: Future of MTG

Originally Posted by H

It isn't that fetchlands (or Brainstorm for that matter) being essential, it's about Legacy being the place where you get to play the "most powerful" cards "allowable" as 4-ofs.

Legacy is defined by exclusion, by certain cards being decidedly and demonstrably better than others. To remove things from the format solely because they are the best option, in the name of some mystical and unachievable "diversity" you are doing violence to the very foundation of Legacy, that is, the principle of excellence. I don't want to play a format where things are banned just for being "too good."

No, legacy is the bastardized version of Vintage for those who couldn't afford it. Then, as time passed, the bastard son of Vintage became more and more reminiscent to the father it so hated. Expensive, Solved, Exclusive and Slowly Declining.

"it's about Legacy being the place where you get to play the "most powerful" cards "allowable" as 4-ofs."

Certainly not the most powerful cards.

I'm all for a ban on fetchlands. Let fetchlands belong to modern, where duals without drawbacks and efficient cantrips do not exist. Fetchlands are the biggest violator of magic rules, worst than the Dredge mechanic. Why? Because it completely ravishes the color pie, turns cantrips into Ancestral Recalls, and makes it too easy to turn decks into 60-most efficient cards without any drawback.

The end result will be a format defined by 1CC and 2CC cards vs Chalice of the Void, the same way Vintage is defined by Workshop/Bazaar/Control.